Gov. Chris Christie will deliver the keynote speech to the Republican National Convention later this month.

Some notable keynoters:

RONALD REAGAN, Republican The convention: 1964 in San Francisco, which nominated Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona The speech: Well-received and believed to have launched the modern conservative movement. What happened next: Two months later he gave a speech that concluded: “You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We’ll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on Earth, or we’ll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.” Two years later, he was elected California governor. He won the presidency in 1980.

MARIO CUOMO, DemocratThe convention: 1984 in San Franciscso, which nominated former Vice President Walter Mondale.The speech: In a memorable speech that catapulted the New York governor into the limelight, Cuomo said: "We proclaim as loudly as we can the utter insanity of nuclear proliferation and the need for a nuclear freeze if only to affirm the simple truth: Peace is better than war because life is better than death."What happened next: He considered running for president in 1992, but opted against it at the last possible moment. He remained governor for another decade and was defeated in the 1994 election.

ANN RICHARDS, Democrat The convention: 1988 in Atlanta, which nominated Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis. The speech: Using her down-home style, the Texas state treasurer threw some classic barbs at Vice President George H.W. Bush, the Republican candidate: “I’m delighted to be here with you this evening, because after listening to George Bush all these years, I figured you needed to know what a real Texas accent sounds like,” and “... Poor George, he can’t help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth.” What happened next: She was elected governor of Texas in 1990. She lost her re-election bid to George W. Bush four years later.

BARACK OBAMA, Democrat The convention: 2004 in Boston, which nominated U.S. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts. The speech: Virtually unknown in national politics and not yet elected to the U.S. Senate, Obama was instantly thrust into the limelight, telling the convention: “I stand here today, grateful for the diversity of my heritage, aware that my parents’ dreams live on in my two precious daughters. I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.” What happened next: Four years later, he was elected president.

FROM NEW JERSEY:

TOM KEAN, Republican The convention: 1988 in New Orleans, which nominated Vice President George H.W. Bush. The speech: New Jersey’s two-term governor had this to say of Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis: “All I can add is one warning, the Dukakis Democrats will try to talk tough. But don’t be fooled. They may try to talk like Dirty Harry. But they will still act like Pee Wee Herman.” What happened next: He never ran for public office after leaving the governorship but gained national recognition for chairing the 9/11 Commission following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and remains a popular political figure.

BILL BRADLEY, Democrat The convention: 1992 in New York, which nominated former Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton. The speech: The former New York Knicks basketball star’s retired jersey hung from the rafters at Madison Square Garden while he prompted the crowd to repeat a refrain of “waffle, wiggle, waiver” to rob Bush of a second term (He got the idea from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s address at the 1936 convention). He shared keynote duties with two other speakers. What happened next: After leaving the U.S. Senate in 1997, he ran unsuccessfully in the 2000 Democratic presidential primary.